'USS Monitor Can Be Raised,' Says Top Underwater Salvaging Expert

NO WRITER ATTRIBUTED
April 16, 1951

The nation's top salvage expert, Captain Edwart Ellsberg, declared last night, "The Monitor can be raised."

Contacted in Southwest Harbor, Maine, by "American Students for Raising the Monitor," he estimated the cost of the operation at $250,000. Captain Ellsberg, the man who raised the Squalus, said that the Monitor could be raised by using external lifting pontoons, a method he pioneered.

This method is the official U.S. Navy system for salvaging submarines. It consists of sinking pontoons on either side of a sunken vessel, attaching chains under it, and pumping the air from the ship and pontoons. Captain Ellsberg said that the operation was simplified by the fact that the U.S.S. Monitor foundered in a gale, and was presumably undamaged.

Ellsberg used the pontoon method successfully in raising the U.S. submarines S-51, S-4, and the Squalus. Ellsberg's nephew, Daniel Ellsberg '52, said he would be glad to try to persuade the Captain to supervise the operation, if the necessary money were raised.

Encouraged by Captain Ellsberg's opinion, the CRIMSON-sponsored "American Students for Raising the Monitor" announced that co-chairman Andrew E. Norman '51 would go to Washington, D.C., this week to see Navy officials.

The other co-chairman, Stopped O. Saxe '51, declared, "If the Navy will raise the Monitor we will raise the money."